The Judas Tree, page 22
Will thanked and paid the taxi driver, then walked up to his mother’s front door and rang the bell.
‘Hello Will,’ she said, when she opened the door. She kissed both his cheeks and then peered behind him. ‘No Harmony?’
‘She’s up to her eyes with work at the moment. She mentioned maybe getting here for tonight, but if not then tomorrow. You look well.’
‘Thank you,’ she said. ‘I feel well.’ She lifted a hand to her greyed hair, cut as it always was in a neat bob with a blunt fringe. She seemed to have put some weight on, which suited her, and her face was less taut, less ravaged. She was dressed in a white shirt, black trousers, and a dark pink cardigan. ‘You look tired.’
He smiled at her honesty. As long as he could remember there’d never been any unnecessary bolstering or false compliments; a spade was a spade and if you didn’t like spades, then tough.
He followed her through to the kitchen and they sat at her small table with its white plastic top. Their old oak one had been too big to fit anywhere and was sold to a neighbour for £50 and four bottles of homemade quince wine. She passed Will a cup of tea in a commemorative mug that celebrated the wedding of Prince Charles and the then Lady Diana, their young, hopeful faces worn away with time and the dishwasher. He played his fingers over the smooth surface, fighting the sudden and unexpected urge to let go of the mug and watch it smash on the floor.
‘How have you been?’ he asked.
‘Busy, actually.’
‘What have you been up to?’
‘I’ve got a job.’
‘Really?’ he said. ‘That’s surprising.’
‘Why?’
He shrugged. ‘I suppose because you’ve never worked before and most people your age are retiring, not starting a career.’
She gave him a fleeting smile. ‘It’s hardly a career. I help out at a local café, tend their window boxes and a small patio garden they have at the back. You know, pick up leaves and weed, deadhead the roses. They give me a couple of pounds every Monday, Wednesday and Friday and I potter about for three or four hours.’ She took a sip of her tea. ‘It’s better than sitting around the house.’
‘If you enjoy it, that’s great,’ he said.
‘I do. One thing I’ve learned, is life is what you make of it. Too many people sit in the dark waiting for life to find them when they ought to be out finding life.’
‘Very wise,’ he said. ‘You’ve become a philosopher too.’
‘I’m old. It’s easy to see sense when you’re old. Harder when you’re young.’
‘I need a bit of wisdom. I’m making so many mistakes.’ He paused then reached for her hand. ‘I’m sorry I haven’t called you much.’
‘Don’t be silly,’ she said, matter-of-factly, withdrawing her hand and patting him. ‘I haven’t called you either. I should have done. Especially since you and Harmony lost the baby.’ She paused. ‘How is she coping?’
‘Things aren’t great for us at the moment.’
‘Most marriages go through a rough patch or two. You have to work through them. If you love each other most problems have solutions. Do you want to talk about it? Not that my advice would help. Advice is one of those gifts that should be given in moderation and generally ignored.’
He smiled ruefully. ‘I’m not sure I’m very good at taking advice. I’m not sure it was ever a strong point of mine.’
She smiled.
‘Are you still missing my father?’ he said, after a pause, and avoiding her eyes as he asked the question.
‘I am. It’s lonely and sometimes feel sorry for myself. I try to fill my days so I can’t think too much. I’ve got this job and I’m playing bridge again, on Monday and Tuesday evenings. Then I’ve got the WI on Thursdays. They’re a ragtag group, and I’m not sure I like all of them, but it keeps me off the streets. There’s a horticultural society I’ve joined which meets once a month, and I’ve even been to a few of the lectures at the university, some of which have been extremely interesting.’
‘I’m impressed.’
‘I spent months sitting alone in this house, which I don’t really like, staring at the television and moping, then one day I thought: how ridiculous to be wasting my time. That’s another thing you start to value as you get older, the time you have left.’ She smiled. ‘So in answer to your question, I’m feeling better about losing your father’s companionship, though I will always miss him.’
Will nodded. ‘Can I ask you something?’
‘Of course.’
‘Do you wish you had a grandchild?’
‘Goodness, I wouldn’t presume to have an opinion on something like that. That’s between you and Harmony and has absolutely nothing to do with me.’
He nodded and looked down at the table. ‘Do you ever wish you hadn’t had me?’
‘Why on earth would you ask that?’
He hesitated, then shrugged a little. ‘I know I made things hard for you. I know my father fought with you about me and you had to intervene all the time. And I know you wished I’d have been easier and not so provocative.’ He sighed. ‘I suppose, looking back on it, having me must have been exhausting and difficult for you. I don’t remember making your life any fun.’
She leant forward and patted his hand. He looked down at hers – liver-spotted, veiny, her thin gold wedding band dull with the years. ‘You were my whole life, William. You’re my child. The most important thing that has ever happened to me, the most wonderful gift. Life without you would have been unthinkable. And do you know what? Having said all I’ve just said about grasping opportunities and experiences in old age, I’d swap the rest of my life for just twenty-four hours with you as a baby in my arms, to smell you and kiss you and have you look up at me as if I was the most beautiful person in the world. That was quite simply the most magical time of my life.’
Will nodded. ‘I’m sorry I was such a shit to you.’
She laughed, a gentle peal of laughter that he realised he missed. ‘Gosh, you were at times. I’d look forward to you coming home from boarding school so much, then you’d shut yourself away in your room, music so loud the walls shook. That awful long hair that I know you only grew to annoy your father. All those damn cigarette ends you threw into the guttering which I had to scoop out at the end of every holiday. But, you know, most of the time you were lovely. You were such a joyful child when you weren’t so cross. You made me laugh and I missed you so much when you were away at school.’
‘Why did you send me away?’ It sounded more like an accusation than he’d intended, so he softened his voice. ‘I mean, if you missed me, why did you send me to boarding school?’
‘It was hard with …’ His mother stopped before finishing her sentence.
‘Go on.’
She hesitated as she tried to formulate her words. ‘It was hard with your father sometimes.’
‘He wasn’t a good man.’
‘You’re wrong.’
‘I’m not.’
She sighed and looked upwards, as if the right words might be glued to the ceiling. ‘Your father,’ she began, then she hesitated. ‘Your father found it hard to show his emotions. He had a difficult time growing up. His father—’
‘I don’t care, Mum,’ Will said, interrupting her, anger bubbling up inside him. ‘I don’t care what happened to him when he was a child. I don’t want to hear it. Lots of people have crap upbringings or have things happen to them as children and they don’t all turn out bad. You can’t make excuses for him.’
‘I can and I will,’ she said, her voice hardening. ‘He was my husband and I loved him.’ She got up and took their cups to the sink, then turned the tap on and started to wash them aggressively. When she’d finished she turned the tap off and stared out of the window over her small, immaculate garden. ‘You broke his heart, you know.’
Will shook his head; that bastard didn’t have a heart to break.
‘His heart and mine.’
‘How did I break your heart?’
The fingers of one hand pulled at the sleeve of her sweater. She fixed her eyes on him. There was an intensity to her stare he found difficult to bear. ‘You should have made your peace with him before he died.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean exactly that. You should have made your peace.’
‘Is this why you’ve been angry with me?’
She didn’t answer him.
‘But it was him with the problem. Why was it my responsibility?’
‘Because he was dying. Because you needed to repair your relationship. Because it would have meant the world to him. And maybe left you happier too.’
Will laughed, a bitter laugh born from years of wishing he and his father had a relationship, years of trying to get his approval, years of being desperate for his love. ‘That man never gave any sign he cared about me in the slightest. He was cold and detached and went out of his way to crush any self-respect or confidence I might have had. You can’t mend that damage with a death-bed heart-to-heart or a meaningless final embrace. It doesn’t work that way. We had no relationship; there was nothing to repair.’
Will recalled the one or two trips he and Harmony had made towards the end. His father lying in bed, weak and frail, with yellowed skin, clinical paraphernalia surrounding his bed, his body wasting away before their eyes. Will had never told anyone, not even Harmony, how little he’d felt when he took the phone call from his mother to inform them of his death. There wasn’t even an emotional release. Just nothing.
The night of the funeral, a few hours after the last person had left the stuffy wake and the food and drink had been cleared away, the three of them sat in front of the fire, staring silently at the flames licking the pile of logs in the grate, clutching mugs of tea.
‘You should have told him you loved him,’ his mother had said in a flat, monotone voice, the light of the flames dancing in the shadows on her face and reflecting in her grief-stricken eyes.
‘I didn’t.’
Will closed his eyes as he recalled the way she’d crumpled, the mug of tea falling to the floor. Harmony had leapt to her side, her hand rubbing his mother’s back, his mother collapsed in frightening sobs Will didn’t comprehend.
Will pushed thoughts of that night from his head and opened his eyes. ‘I don’t want to talk about this,’ he said. ‘It was over a year ago and there isn’t anything we can say to change what happened. He’s dead. I didn’t make my peace and I’m OK with that.’
‘He was your father.’
‘In blood.’ Will said, doggedly clinging to the argument, ignoring the voice in his head that told him to tell her what she wanted to hear: that he regretted it and would never forgive himself. Instead he ploughed on. ‘In my book you have to earn the right to be a father. You have to earn respect, not demand it. And you have to want to be a father and do your best.’
His mother crossed her arms and stared at him, her eyes prickling with angry tears. ‘You are a selfish, selfish boy.’
Will opened his mouth to speak, but she didn’t let him.
‘Did you ever stop to think about how much it would have meant to me? I know how difficult he was – good God, I put up with enough of his rubbish myself – but he was dying.’ She untucked a tissue from the sleeve of her cardigan and pressed it against her eyes. ‘Did you think how I might be feeling? I wanted him to pass away having had some sort of reconciliation with my son. With you.’ She paused. ‘You’re right, it was difficult being in between you both, listening to your constant fighting, seeing the hatred for him grow in your eyes. I loathed it. It was exhausting. We don’t get to choose our parents, but we don’t get to choose our children either.’ She paused and balled the tissue and closed her fist around it. ‘Do you know what my most wished for wish was?’
Will looked at his hands and stayed silent.
‘That the three of us could sit down in front of the fire and play a game of gin rummy or Scrabble and chat like a normal family. That was it. Not much to ask, was it?’ She shook her head. ‘But you’re right. He’s dead and gone now. It’s done so there’s no point dwelling on it.’
His mother straightened her shoulders and took a deep breath. Will saw her battling with the regret and sadness that haunted her, trying to paper over it and put on a stoic face. He stood and went over to her and put his arms around her. ‘I’m sorry, Mum. I understand what you’re saying and I get it. You’re right. I didn’t think of you. I was only thinking about myself.’
When they separated she looked up at him and nodded. ‘It’s good to see you,’ she said softly. ‘I’ve missed you. I let my feelings over this get in the way of what matters.’
‘No,’ he said. ‘It did matter. It mattered to you and I should have worked that out on my own.’
She smiled and rubbed his hand and at that moment he’d never felt closer to her and a rush of warmth spread through him.
‘Hey,’ he said, jumping away from her and moving back towards the hallway. ‘I’ve got something to show you.’
‘Oh yes?’ She pressed the balled tissue against each eye for a final time then tucked it back into her sleeve.
Will grabbed his bag from the hall floor and then came back into the kitchen and got his camera out. ‘You might need your specs.’
‘What is it, then?’ she said, as she reached for her glasses from the kitchen worktop.
Will found the pictures he’d taken of the garden. He stood close to her so he could scroll through them. ‘I’ve started gardening.’
She smiled at him, then put her glasses on and looked back at the camera screen. ‘Well, I never,’ she said. ‘Doesn’t it look beautiful?’ She touched her finger to the small screen. ‘That right-hand wall looks so much better now the ghastly hawthorn’s gone.’ She smiled again. ‘Good for you. It looks lovely.’
‘I should have done it ages ago.’
‘Better late than never.’
As he put the camera on the table, a movement caught his eye at the door. He turned to look and saw a grey tabby cat slinking its way into the room.
‘Why is there a cat in the house?’
His mother bent to stroke the cat, who rubbed herself against his mother’s legs and began to purr.
‘She’s called Penny,’ his mother said, tickling the cat’s cheek. ‘When she came to me she was called Sylvia, but I didn’t think it suited her, so I renamed her. You like Penny better, don’t you, poppet?’ The cat lifted herself off her front feet and pushed her cheek against his mother’s hand. ‘She was abandoned by an awful person who just went off on holiday and left six cats locked in a top-floor flat in Peterborough. The RSPCA officer who found them said there was no food or water and the place stank to high heaven.’ She looked at Will and raised her eyebrows. ‘The poor creatures had been left for six days and only survived by drinking water out of the loo.’
Will reached out to stroke the cat. ‘When did you get her?’
‘A couple of months after your father died,’ she said. ‘I was terribly lonely and needed something to look after. And, well, I never forgot taking that dear kitten of yours to the shelter and I thought I’d somehow try and make amends. Anyway, she’s been an absolute gift, haven’t you, angel?’
Will had a flash of his father shaking his cat like a soft toy and closed his eyes against a familiar surge of hostility. ‘How did you live with him?’ he whispered.
She took her hand away from the cat who sauntered through the room and into the hallway. ‘He was my husband and I loved him and, whatever you think, we were happy. Nobody knows what makes a good marriage. People have these ideas of marrying the ideal person, the love of their life, but in reality it rarely happens. Marriage requires care and attention and hard work, like a garden, in fact. There’s no such thing as the perfect marriage, but if you love someone enough to marry them then the very least they can expect is your loyalty and support.’
That night he slept in what his mother called the spare room, which was essentially a small storage room, stacked high with boxes of things she and his father couldn’t bear to throw away when they moved to the smaller house. He closed the door and sat on the edge of the bed. There were piles of his father’s clothes, laid carefully on hangers over the boxes. There was a tweed jacket on the top that his father had worn for as long as Will could remember. He placed his hand on it and pictured his father standing in their old living room, one hand on the mantelpiece, the other on his hip, as if posing for a Victorian photograph.
He reached across and turned the light off. The room was lit by the street lamps outside. He thought of his mother next door. She’d taken Penny upstairs with her and Will had smiled as he caught sight of them when he passed her door, the animal curled up on his father’s side of the bed, nestled beside her, contentedly cleaning itself. He imagined how angry his father would be if he was able to see it, and how happy his mum was, lying in her button-up nightie, covers neatly tucked in around her, her fingers idly stroking the cat’s fur as she read.
Will was woken from a heavy, dreamless sleep by the buzz of a text. He grabbed for it sleepily and glanced at the time. It was a quarter to one, earlier than it felt. He blinked in the light of his phone and saw the message was from Harmony.
His heart skipped and he sat upright.
I’m parked outside. Are you awake?
Chapter Twenty-Three
The night before Will left for his mother’s, rather than go to bed, she’d sat on the floor of her study, knees pulled into her chest, back against the door in case Will tried to come in, weak with worry as she stared at her phone as it buzzed incessantly. She was in over her head. Luke hadn’t stopped calling or texting since she’d walked out of the restaurant. She’d stopped answering or replying. She’d even stopped reading them. All he said, over and over, was life was too short, they had to be together, that he could make her happy. Begging and pleading to be with him. She had hoped each ignored call or text would be the last and that he’d eventually get the message.
But he didn’t stop.
At around four in the morning, as dawn crept in on the darkness, her mind had become bleary with exhaustion and panic, she answered.
